I think I may have been offered a caring carrot today...

[hazeyjane]

...ds was being observed by a learning disability nurse today at nursery, in the hope that she can help come up with a plan wrt ds's separation anxiety when he starts preschool in April.

Ds was having a good day, he has now had 2 of these since starting 16 months ago, it has been a long hard slog to even get him to look at his keyworker, or play without having a hand on my leg at all times, or scream for most of the session, and I can't leave the room without him going into a complete meltdown.

After watching him for the session, and listening to his keyworker explain the severity of his separation anxiety, her suggestion was, 'have you tried telling ds that you are just popping out to the loo, and will be back in a minute?.....'

Obviously all our problems are solved now, phew.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

DS's school suffered at Ofstead time, while others in the area that are horrible for SN kids got "outstanding" gradings.

Beware the outstanding school - that is my experience too!

Caring carrot this morning: TA 'why don't you stay in class and watch the other children's presentations, that will be so nice for you'

DS 'I don't care about the other children's presentations'

TA 'well I think it would be very nice for you to see them'

DS 'why? I don't care about their presentations'

TA 'well it would'

DS 'no it wouldn't'

Me 'if you watch their presentations and try and remember something about wch of them, we can go outside on the climbing frame for ten minutes after and chat about them'

DS 'ok'

While on climbing frame, we discuss the presentations and why people might want us to watch them.

Caring carrots deliver all they have got and think about what is nice for them to see happen with little SEN children - all lovely and included being forced to watch other people's presentations when they have NO motivation to do so.

I imagine this kind of conversation is repeated ad nauseum all day.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

One of my favourites is when I mentioned that ds' had made NO progress in school to the Autism Advisory Teacher - Her response:

'Mrs Starlight, DS' autism isn't going to go away you know!'

No, but I'll bloody well make sure YOU do! That was the last time I saw her.

[WilsonFrickett]

Oh YY to that boc. The reaction to my private ABA consultant at DS school couldn't have been bettered. So defensive! If I'd displayed those behaviours to anyone on a professional basis I would have been disciplined.

[bochead]

To be fair I've come across a few people who were able to help - trouble is 99% of the time they are in the private sector and boy are there barriers to the two sectors working together! The finance is just one barrier.

I'm still in shock at the positive response DS's school had to an external EP going in a couple of years back(they implemented all her suggestions that didn't require outside expertise, eg all those it was in their power to do so). That however is very much the exception and NOT the norm, the common response is extreme defensiveness. DS's school suffered at Ofstead time, while others in the area that are horrible for SN kids got "outstanding" gradings.

DS's NHS SALT is A-fooking mazing, but she only sees him 3x a term and this year his TA is a bit dodgy, so her efforts are diluted to say the least. The state insists she spend all her time in meetings about meetings rather than DOING. Oh and she's surrounded by professionals from other disciplines who are carrots extraordinaire. How she stays sane I'll never know.

[MerryCouthyMows]

Boch - apparently NC lvl 4 IS 'caught up' for DD. In Y10. Told to me by the caring carrot that is the HLTA that deals with her. Yes, because it's normal to be at a 10yo's lvl at 15, isn't it?!

"But she's made so much progress in her time here"

"Yes, but it's not going to get her a C in any of her GCSE's to get her into college like you told me her progress would in Y9 when we were deciding options, is it?!"

(Can you tell I've just had DD's half-year report tonight, with nothing higher than a D grade on there - and many E / F / G?! Even her catering is only an E, and that's what she wanted to go to college doing.)

[MareeyaDolores]

Ds now sees a very nice carrot for 30min/week, who listens to school woes.
My tally chart of morning meltdowns has demonstrated moderate effectiveness.

[moondog]

By chasing after help you end up stressing yourself out and wasting energy that could be better deployed elsewhere.
I haven't come across one person in the industry who could offer solid measurable help.
Not bloody one.
Pathetic.

[bochead]

moondog - yup gotta agree with you there. The buck stops at home.

[moondog]

I've come to the conclusion that one is best off accepting from the outset that the best person to help your child is you yourself.

[BaggyKnickers]

No Polter, I am just surprised at a school spraying a child but maybe its a known strategy? Just never heard of it before.

[bochead]

PIVATS (sorry got spelling wrong) actually looks like a massive investment of time and energy for the teacher. www.rotherhamparentpartnership.com/pdf/factsheets/plevelsandpivats.pdf
To willingly take on this burden of paperwork is very admirable. In terms of actually WANTING to help DS generally this school deserves mucho kudos. I really do appreciate the effort, but am just not sure how it's going to improve the outcome iyswim.

It also really hurts to get the formal acknowledgement after spending the whole of KS1 being condescendingly told "he'll catch up" by every caring carrot in the system from the Ed Pysch to teachers to now see it being made official that actually no he won't. Unless of course you consider NC levels of 2ish by the end of Primary to be "caught up" in a child that everyone said for years had nothing wrong with him.

Bright to the general population means on course for medical school or Oxbridge, "bright" in SN terms means "presents as a having slightly higher intellectual capacity than a chicken".

The lavender oil is the standard caring carrot suggestion to hearing that DS has major sleep maintenance issues Moondog. Maybe it makes you "bright" enough to accept the caring carrots diabolically low expectations if you drink it? I dunno anymore.

[BaggyKnickers]

Talking of lavender reminded me of this old Sendist case about an exclusion here. The child had ASD and one of the strategies used by school was to spray him with lavender oil

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Yes, that might be what they mean, but that is what I would be saying.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

or that he is bright for a child with ASD who we have been trained to have low expectations for.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Because they don't mean that they think he is bright. What they are 'really' saying is:

'We have low expectations for your child but don't want to spend any money on him, so he isn't capable of anything, but can do everything without help'

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Well, if he is bright and far behind his peers, my question would be what the bloody hell are they doing to close the gap between ability and performance!

[moondog]

Lavendar oil????

Unbloddy believable.
What numpty said that?

[bochead]

Star your "bright" comments really resonated here - got that one at parents evening yesterday just before being told that DS has been moved to the pivot levels on the NC (what they do in desperation when a kid is so far behind the expected NC levels that even referring to them in passing has become a waste of time yet "progress" still needs to be proven.).

He's so "bright" is right up there with "have you tried lavender oil" on my list of most despised caring carrot comments of all time. I'm at my wits end now over his lack of academic progress and they tell me he's "bright"

[wasuup3000]

I got 2 carrots today from the head at my daughters school:

"What about when she goes to train station, how is she going to cope then"?

^^DD doesn't like assemblies because of the noise, hustle, bustle, crowds and erm germs...Major meltdown today because she didn't want to go to school because of this.

"Does she get her own way when she has meltdowns"!

[ouryve]

starlight - DS1's last statement started "DS1 is a happy boy"

I made them change that. He defaults to sullen and angry.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Ah mummy yes professionals are always saying ds' is bright, just before they rattle off that they are working with him 3 levels below the national curriculum.


Indpendent professionals also have their moments. Both our SALT and EP have attempted to reassure me by stating that ds doesn't JUST have ASD, he also has a lot going for him because his dad is very intelligent.

Er - yeah. Thanks

[MummytoMog]

When they say 'photographic' they mean that she remembers stuff very easily, but it's not like she looks at a page and can reproduce it exactly. They mean like my memory, where I have ridiculously good short term recall, but I couldn't look at a page or a picture and reproduce it later (but it did make me very good at continuity when I worked in films). The thing is, like with me, is that it's not just visual. This is the child who picks up theme tunes and phrases in one hearing (and I think a lot of echolalic kids do the same) so she obviously is an aural learner as well. So what is the use of saying she's a visual learner?

Oh, and why do they always say shit like 'we think DD is really bright' when you know full well they don't. They're saying that to appease me, but there's no real way of gauging how bright she is at the moment, obviously I think she's bright, but I'm her mother.

I'm not mad keen on colourful semantics. They want to use a lot of photo cards as well and PECS died a very brutal death in our household (DS chewed up all the cards in DD's PECS book. Then put them in the woodburner). I don't think photo cards are really going to work any better.

I have masses of PECS cards that I laminated left over btw if anyone wants me to post them out.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Oh yes. DS did colourful semantics. I thought the idea was interesting so engaged with an open mind.

What a load of rubbish. Perhaps for other children it might be of benefit but honestly, I think it pure benefit was to give the SALT and then TA 'something to do'.